“You want another quotation, Shreve? Blackstone: ‘Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.’ That’s what my system does, makes sure the innocent don’t end up as victims. Yours doesn’t.” She fished her keys from her battered purse. “I’m going to keep watching you.”

“Then I’ll look forward to seeing you in court, Counselor.”

He turned and walked back to his car. He sat, calming, in the front seat, not looking back. Breathing.

Let it go.

Five minutes later he started at his phone’s buzz. He noted Ruth’s number on caller ID.

“Hi, there.”

“Uhm, Shreve. I heard. Is it true about Spencer?”

“Afraid it is. I’ll tell you more later. I don’t want to talk on an open line.”

“Okay. But that’s not why I called. We heard from Washington.”

The Wizard.

“He wanted to schedule a call with you for tomorrow afternoon.”

Didn’t firing squads gather at dawn?

“That’s fine,” he said. “Send me the details.” He stretched. A joint popped. “Say, Ruth?”

“Yes?”

“What did he sound like?”

There was a pause. “He…It wasn’t so good, I don’t think, Shreve.”

“Okay, Ruth. Thank you.”

He disconnected and looked out over the busy crime scene at Spencer Boston’s house. The sour chemical vapors still lingered, surrounding the Colonial home and the grounds.

Smoke…

So that was it. Whether Moreno was guilty or not was irrelevant; Washington now had plenty of reason to disband NIOS. Metzger had picked for his administrations director a whistleblower, and for his defense contractor a corrupt CEO who’d ordered people tortured and killed.

This was the end.

Metzger sighed and put the car in gear, thinking: Sorry, America. I did the best I could.

SATURDAY, MAY 20

VII

MESSAGES

Chapter 93

CHAPTER 93

AT NINE ON SATURDAY MORNING Lincoln Rhyme was maneuvering through the lab and dictating the evidence report to back up the Walker trial and the Swann plea agreement.

He noted too his calendar, up on a big monitor.

Surgery Friday, May 26. Be at hospital at 9 a.m.
NO liquor after midnight. None. Not a drop.

He smiled at the second line, Thom’s entry.

The town house was quiet. His aide was in the kitchen and Sachs was in her apartment in Brooklyn. She’d had basement problems and was waiting for the contractor. She would also be seeing Nance Laurel later today—getting together for drinks and dinner.

And dish on men too…

Rhyme was pleased the women had, against all odds, become friends. Sachs didn’t have many.

The sound of a doorbell echoed and Rhyme heard Thom’s footfalls making for the portal. A moment later he returned with a tall figure in a brown suit, white shirt and green tie whose hue he couldn’t begin to describe.

NYPD Captain Bill Myers. Special Services Division. Whatever that might be.